“Outsourced Self ”: Marketized Care And Production Of Informal Workers

With the growth of the pressure of care in China,marketized care has gradually become an alternative choice for family.However,because of lack of market regulation and the control of the national discourse on the quality of the labor,the female workers in the domestic market still face the dilemma of lack of legal protection and being stigmatized.It can be seen that there are contradictions and tensions in the life of domestic workers who engage in marketized care with both public and private characteristics.This study focus on female domestic workers who migrate to big cities.Through the “middleman”,the author entered into two companies in Shanghai and Hangzhou and some residential communities in Nanjing and Beijing to collect some data by participant observation and interviewing.From the perspective of subjectivity of care workers,this study tries to discuss how domestic workers participate in marketized care without support of resource,how they respond to work requirements in the market,and how they interpret the value and the meaning of care work.The main points which this study focus on are as follows:(1)how domestic workers think about the care work and how they enter into the care market;(2)the tension of identity and conflict of work which care workers face in the work and life,including class difference and urban-rural separation between care workers and employers' families,as well as the contradiction between work and family;(3)How domestic workers seek job opportunities and recognition through their own practice in the process of marketized care.From the perspective of subjectivity of care workers,this study gains conclusions are as follows: Firstly,the domestic worker in the current care market is an informal identity with multiple meanings of gender,age,and occupation.When they try to find a job of care,they actively mobilize a variety of female gender characteristics such as age,personality,temperament,which are transformed into their professional ability and capital.This process makes the middle-aged female migrants who has been originally excluded from the labor market realize the economic and social value of their care work;Secondly,marketized care transforms the employers' family into a private working space.Domestic workers have to sustain the stratification of the body,untrusted surveillance,and conflicts with life experiences and concepts;Thirdly,domestic workers gain a living space through continuous care practice.This self-practice is the main way for care workers to fight for their rights and interests without institutional environment and legal protection.At last,this study re-examines the limitations of the development of the care industry and reflects on the neglect of the value of care and the inequality of care resource allocation.